Silver
by Roz Morgan
Summary: Swan Lake slash - two of the enchanted swans discuss Odette and the enchantment they live under.


 Moonlight broke through the canopy of Burch trees and painted dappled patterns upon the faces of a gaggle of swans, bobbing upon a milky pool.

The silvery swans raised small silver heads to gaze at the moon and like one opened their beaks to sigh but, alas, birds cannot sigh.

But girls can.

Silver feathers floated in and amongst the duckweed and around the ankles of a gaggle of young girls –slender and pale with moonbeam hair, moonbeam eyes in moonbeam shifts damp from the pool they stood in. 

They wadded from the water and onto the bank where they settled and played together in gentle ladylike ways or sang in soft silvery voices. 

The two youngest swan-girls sat to the side of the group; Clara the elder brushing Sophie the youngers hair. 

There where no knots and no tangles, just soft downy feathers that had not faded nor fallen, Clara removed these as gently as she could, humming under her breath an old folk song. She pulled hard upon one of the feathers and Sophie bit her lip, tears coming unbidden to her eyes.

She wanted to gasp or cry out but _he_ would not like that, he liked his swan maidens to be docile ladies. 

Sophie had never been truly sure why she had been brought to the enchanted garden, for what she could make out from the older girls he collected them and kept them like the prised swans they became – something beautiful to look at and a symbol of power.

Clara stopped tugging and Sophie relaxed before turning her head.

Odette their leader, they fallowed her for she had been an ornament to his power the longest, had risen from her rest and was wading back into the water and across to the woods upon the other side. 

Sophie watched her until she could no longer pick out her form amongst the trees before she turned back to Clara. 

"Where do you suppose she goes?" 

Clara shrugged and lowered her voice conspiratorially to a whisper "Perhaps she has a lover!" 

Sophie gasped, raising a slender hand to cover her mouth.

"He would see! He would be so angry!" 

"Mayhap she does not care, she may be in love" 

Sophie turned her head away again to study the trees.

"I would be too scared" she said "I could not leave the garden, not to go to anyone"

"Nor I! the garden provides ample as it is, no need to go looking for anything beyond it" Clara said, leaning back till she was staring up at the sky. 

"Not even day?" Sophie asked.

"We see day" 

"But not as humans, I would like to play and scream in the sunshine not sit and sing in the moonlight" Sophie quiet surprised herself with the force of her reply, she had not given much thought to life beyond the garden but now she did she desired it more then an answer to Odette's nightly disappearances. 

Clara sat up quickly and regarded her as if she'd gone mad.

"A moment ago you were happy here" 

"Well now I am not!" Sophie said angrily "I wish I where home"

"And away from me?" Clara's voice was but half a joke and her eyes betrayed the fear the rest of her refused to show.

"Of course not" Sophie whispered "You make this bearable" she leant to kiss Clara upon the cheek but the other young woman caught her face between her hands and brought their lips together.

The kiss was sweet and chaste but it both thrilled and terrified Sophie; she broke the kiss, her moon-eyes wide.

"Its not lady like!" she hissed "He will be angry" 

 Clara regarded her with a self satisfied smirk upon her face.

"A moment ago you complained about being lady-like, tis but a small rebellion to kiss me, but tis enough, like reclaiming sunlight to me" 

and with that she leant forward again and kissed Sophie, this time with non of the gentle softness of a moment ago but with a fire that all but consumed Sophie who pressed her hands between them as if to push her away but bundled them into Clara's shift and pulled her closer, try to gain better access to the fire inside Clara; the warmth she hadn't felt since the last caress of the sun.

And Clara wrapped her arms around Sophie, smiling through the kiss. 

Sunlight dawned upon the garden and a flock of silver swans sleeping in emerald grass and danced sleepy beams of golden light upon two small swans sleeping far from the rest of the flock and curled around each other so tightly it was hard to see where one ended and the other began.

Swans cannot smile but a moment it looked as if these two did. 


End file.
